


Hair and Heritage

by huskylover18



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Bullied Keith, Gay Keith (Voltron), Keith (Voltron) Needs a Hug, White-Haired Keith (Voltron), demigod lance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-26 09:03:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21371596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huskylover18/pseuds/huskylover18
Summary: Keith and Lance both harbor secrets. One has secrets about hair and the other about heritage. It's not the way you would think.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 51





	1. Hair

He had looked everywhere. No space mall, Altean cabinet, or planet had the one thing that kept Keith’s life somewhat normal: hair dye. He led looked everywhere for the black color, but there was none. Now, he was starting to worry. His roots were starting to lighten and become the unnerving white color of his natural hair. 

Keith had been bullied enough already. All through grade school, he had been an outcast; being told you looked like you were 100 years old by your 10 year old peers doesn’t help self esteem. 

***

Before switching schools, he bought some black hair dye. He used it, and the bullying went away. He had relied on it like a crutch all through the Garrison. No one knew he had an inhuman hair color, not even Shiro. He feared that if they found out now, it’d just remind them once again he wasn’t fully human. It would just give Allura another chance to hold a grudge against him.

He looked in the mirror to see his silvery roots peaking out. Sighing, he turned away. He found a hat in the dresser of his room. Keith knew it would be odd to see him wearing something like this, but it would have to do. 

Keith set out to get some food goo before he went to train. He normally got up early enough so that he could have the training room all to himself, so it surprised him to find Lance at the table eating by himself. 

Fantastic.

The one person who would turn his whole hair situation upside down.

“Morning, mullet,” Lance said unenthusiastically. 

Keith was surprised at how Lance even knew he was there. Normally Keith was pretty quiet when he walked. Nevertheless, he was still hungry. He walked over to the food goo machine and dispensed some into his bowl. He sat down near Lance and started eating.

Lance looked at Keith with an expression of betrayal on his face. “Do now you aren’t even talking to me now? Fine, see you at training.” Lance stormed off after depositing his bowl in the dishwasher. 

Keith finished eating, but still felt pretty guilty for how he treated Lance earlier. He started looking for him. He looked in Blue’s hangar, the common rooms, and the bridge. Lance was nowhere to be found in the castle. Exasperated, Keith headed to the training room. 

He had expected the room to be empty, but to his surprise, Lance was there. Dozens of drones floated around Lance, and he hit them with startling accuracy. Keith was pretty sure Lance hadn’t seen or heard him come in. Only moments later, Lance had almost all of the drones taken out. 

Once Lance had taken them all out, Keith walked forward to him. Lance spun around quickly, bayard raised. Keith yelped, raising his hands, “Lance! It’s me!” 

Lance lowered his bayard, “What are you doing here?”

“I’m really sorry about this morning. I just really didn’t want to talk to anyone.” He replied.

Lance’s eyes grew less fiery and he relaxed. “Well mullet, since you’re here, do you want to do a couple rounds of training with me?”

Keith felt his face flush a bit, then nodded. He took out his bayard as Lance started the next sequence. 

Drones and sentries came toward them, Lance’s laser bolts firing true to their course. Keith mowed down sentries with his sword. Once the sequence finished, they both were on the ground panting. 

Keith smiled at Lance and said,” I guess we do make a good team, even if you don’t remember our bonding moment.”

It was Lance's turn to flush, and he started laughing. Keith found himself looking at Lance with a smile. He wished Lance would laugh more, it was a nice sound. 

Keith noticed his head was really hot, so he reached up to pull his hat off. His hand was halfway up before he remembered why he was wearing it. 

Lance noticed Keith freeze up, “You okay, mullet? You uh kinda froze up there.”

Keith started panicking, “Yeah, yeah I’m fine!” He replied in a squeaky voice.

“Are you sure? You look kinda hot there.” Lance’s eyes widened once he realized what he said. “What I mean is, you look a little warm, are you overheating?” Lance quickly amended.

Keith sighed. “I’m fine Lance, it’s just…” Keith trailed off.

“What?”

“I just…” he started, “You wouldn’t understand.” 

“Keith, whatever it is, if you need someone to listen to you, I’m here" Lance supported.

“No one really knows this but… isortofhavewhitehair and I haven’t told anyone this cause I didn’t know how they’d react.” He said meekly.

“Wait what? That’s so cool! Can I see?” 

“Lance why would you want to see? It just…”

“First off Keith, white hair sounds so cool. Secondly, I really want to see what it looks like on you. So take off that sweaty hat and get over here! Lemme see!” Lance begged.

Keith was surprised to say the least. Lance was seriously confusing him. Why wasn’t he making fun of him? And why was he being so nice?

He slid his hat of to let Lance see. The other boy scrambled over to him to see. 

“Whoa! Keith this is awesome! Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Lance exclaimed.

Keith let his face droop. “When I was really little, kids would make fun of me and I guess I was always afraid people would treat me differently because of that.”

“Oh.” Lance looked downcast. “No one should be judged because of the way they look.”  
“Can I hug you Keith?” 

“What!?”

“Can I hug you? You look like you need one.”

“Sure” he squeaked out. 

Lance hugged him tightly. Keith found himself melt into the hug. His face lit up bright red when he realized they were on the training room floor. Hugging. Like normal friends would. Yeah. Nothing odd about that. Just two friends hugging. Nothing odd there. 

“Thanks.” Lance said. His eyes were damp. “We should probably change clothes. The others might be wondering where we are.”

They walked to their rooms.

Keith was happy he finally found someone to tell. He would tell the others later. For now, he would get showered and into clean clothes.


	2. Heritage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the everything with Keith, one of Lance's most important secrets gets out.

It had been a little while and Keith and Lance started to hang out more. They trained often together, working together like a well-oiled machine. Keith really enjoyed the extra time with Lance and found his thoughts drifting towards him. 

Lance and Keith were sent on a small recon mission after showing how well they worked together now. The mission was supposed to be quick, but things never go as planned. 

The base they were collecting info from was small, and seemed like it had been recently deserted. Keith and Lance disembarked from their lions and stepped carefully into the base. The map Pidge supplied them with guided them to the lab. It held news of what new weapons the Galra were developing. Once they got to the room, Keith immediately plugged in Pidge's device while Lance stood guard. 

Everything went wrong in the blink of an eye. All it took was Lance shifting his foot back to get a better stance to trigger a trap. He was injected with a needle that contained a gold mixture that looked like it had a faint glow. 

Lance fell to the ground with a thud, and Keith tore the device out and rushed over to him. Lance was unconscious, but still breathing. Keith hauled Lance up and ran out of the room. 

He radioed the others as he rushed to his lion. “Guys! Lance is hurt and I need help! I’m taking him back in Red, will blue be okay?”

“Keith!” Shiro exclaimed, “What happened?”

“No time to explain. Will Blue be okay?”

A new voice came over the comms. “The blue lion should be fine. She will follow behind Lance, but her defences will be severely affected. We will cover you if danger arises.” Allura's voice was a relief to Keith

Keith headed into Red and made sure Lance was okay on his lap. Lance looked peaceful and his face was so… UGH! He needs to get back now! There’s no time for a stupid little tiny crush on Lance. Where had that come from? He raced back to the castle in Red.  
As Allura said, Blue followed, but she was slower as if worried for her Paladino’s health. Keith hoped he would make it back in time.

“Stay strong Lance. We’re almost there.”

***

Coran had a pod ready and got Lance in as soon as possible. 

“I’ll have to take a genetic scan to see how this is affecting his body.” The ginger man said. It may be a little while before he is fully healed, so you should rest, Number Four.

Keith trudged back to his room, only to be met by Shiro in the hallway.

“Hey Keith, you okay?” Shiro asked.

“I’m just fine, Shiro.” Keith snapped. “Sorry, I just…” Keith trailed off. 

“Do you want to talk about something, Keith? You do realize that this wasn’t your fault, don’t you?”

“But it was! I should have checked the room before entering it! We should have known it would have traps in it! It’s my fault he got hurt.” Keith was distraught, overcome with too many emotions to count. 

“Keith, anyone could have made that mistake. Go get some sleep and Lance will be out before you know it. And, if you ever want to talk, my door is always open.” Shiro looked at Keith with a gentle smile, then turned and walked away, leaving Keith alone in the hall.

***

“Paladins, I am afraid I have some odd news.” Coran had brought everyone except for Lance into the common areas. He continued,” When I was looking at Lance’s genetic code when checking on his vitals, I noticed a peculiar observation.

As you can see here, this is the genetic mapping of Shiro’s and Keith’s DNA. This over here, is Lance’s. It appears he is missing some of his genetic coding. Do you have any idea what could have caused this? Is this a regular occurrence on Earth?”

Keith was shocked. He didn’t remember Lance saying anything about a genetic deficiency or the like. Then again, they really hadn’t gotten close until recently. 

“I haven’t seen anything like this on Earth. We'll have to see, but it may be best to ask him about it after he gets out. Your scans say he should be out soon and that almost all of the healing is done, maybe it’s just a condition he was born with.” Pidge looked at the charts Coran had pulled up as she said this. 

“We will see about this when he gets out of the pod. The rest of you, get something to eat. We have training later.” Shiro said all this with his signature *dad voice*.

Everyone left the room except for Keith and Shiro. 

“Hey uh Shiro. I just can’t help thinking, what if Lance isn’t okay? What if all the scans are wrong and he gets worse? What are we supposed to do if-" KKeithwas cut off by a hand on his shoulder. 

“Everything will be okay. And if you do need any advice on training, relationships, or anything, let me know.” Shiro told Keith with a smirk.

Keith rolled his eyes and went to the kitchen for some food.

***

Keith waited patiently by the pod Lance was in. He heard a beeping, and Lance stumbled out. 

“What happened?” Lance asked groggily. 

“Thank God you’re okay! You were injected with this weird galra serum trap thing during the mission. You were unconscious until now. Also we took a DNA test on you and Coran noticed you were missing like huge chunks of it and-" Keith was cut off by a hand on his mouth. 

“I’m fine now. And as for the DNA thing…” Lance trailed off.

“Sit on the floor with me, this may take a bit.

Do you believe in gods?”

***

Keith patiently listened to Lance’s stories. It’s hard to believe, but Lance being the son of goddess wasn’t hard to believe. After all, he was half alien.

“And that’s how I’ve already done all this training. Also, this scar on my chin wasn’t from just tripping on a rock. I almost won capture the flag, but I tripped over a root and lost the flag.”

“You still haven’t told me who your mom is. Can you tell me?” Keith asked.

“Its Aphrodite. Greek goddess of love and beauty. I didn’t really want to tell you because looking good on a battlefield will do nothing. I just felt like it would make me less wanted on the team.”

“Hey, it’s okay. What would we be without our sharpshooter?” Keith assured Lance.

“Besides, we should probably tell the others you’re up,” Keith told him.

Together, they strolled back to the kitchen to grab Lance some food.  
***

“So how would something like that even work?” Pidge inquired. “Like how is there half of your DNA gone?”

“I honestly don’t know. Everyone just kinda accepts it.” Lance replied.

“Is there anything else we should know? Any special requirements or things that are different?” Shiro asked. 

“Well, I mean I’ve got ADHD so that gets annoying. Also, I have dyslexia, so that make things a little difficult.” Lance replied. His foot tapped against the floor. 

“What are those? Physical ailments?” Allura questioned .

“I’ll let the others fill you in on it. I need some sleep.” Lance said.

Lance started to walk back to his room when Keith stood up.

“Let me take you. You know, just so you don’t fall or go to sleep in the middle of the hallway.”

“Ok. Thanks Keith.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! As always leave kudos or a comment if you would like.
> 
> So this was supposed to go up yesterday but life happened.
> 
> Also, visit me on tumblr at @peg-thedisneyfanatic.
> 
> Toodles!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Leave kudos and or a review!
> 
> This is my first work! Do you like it? If you see a mistake please let me know!
> 
> If you have an idea for a future story, let me know. (I will NOT do NSFW content or the like.)


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